iPad 2 Teardown: Held Together By Glue And Sticky Tape

New technologies will always try to become smaller and lighter, at least that’s the trend. However, there is a limit to the weight and size of a gadget before consumers will become unable to use it according to their preferences, meaning how comfortable the gadget is to hold in our hands. So far, things that were quite small yesterday are still becoming smaller today. It seems the cell phones have reached their limit and are stagnated when it comes to their size getting ever smaller. It’s not just the size that gets overhauled every time a new version of a gadget is released. Also the weight is looked into, and a common way to get the weight down is to use other materials that are both lighter and more durable.

When it comes to the iPad 2, released just a few days ago, those parameters don’t exactly follow the mainstream incentive. A brand new teardown of the iPad 2 shows that it’s mostly held together by glue and double sided sticky tape. Even though doing it this way surely lightens the weight, it also makes the whole thing a lot less easy to repair if something were to go clonk.

It’s the DIY iFixit site that did the teardown and found that several things have been changed, revamped and realigned. Instead of having to search the entire world for the right tools to loosen the weird screws previously used, you now need a heat gun and pliers in order to get into the iPad 2. This of course makes the repair-ability of the gadget really hard and time consuming. Is it good or bad? Well, for the DIYer, it might be a pain in the nuts, but for Apple, it means they will keep their devices repaired by authorized Apple repair people. It’s more money for Apple, I guess.